Current Productions for the week of March 26, 2012

Cleansed by Sarah Kane
Presented by Thinking Cap Theatre
at Empire Stage Until Mar 31
Set in some kind of institution, part of a university set aside as a sanatorium for mental patients or drug offenders, but this is not completely clear. It also partly seems like a dream sequence, a drug-induced hallucination, or a future totalitarian regime ridding itself of undesirables. The head of the institution is Tinker, a drug dealer/doctor, who rules over it calmly meting out torture, brutal death, and pseudo-medical experimentation.


Working by Stephen Schwartz
at The Caldwell Theatre Company Presents Until April 1
Based on the best-selling book of interviews with American workers by Studs Terkel, Working explores the American workday from the Monday morning blues to a working person's pride in having "something to point to." Music by Stephen Schwartz (Wicked), Lin Manuel-Miranda (In the Heights), and Grammy award winner James Taylor.


A Steady Rain by Keith Huff
at The Gable Stage Until Apr 1
This hard-hitting Broadway smash chronicles love and rage on the streets of Chicago. A domestic disturbance call sends two cops, friends since childhood, on a harrowing journey that will test their loyalties and change their lives forever. As their lifelong friendship is put to the ultimate test, both men must deal with honor and loyalty in the face of adversity.


Death and the Maiden by Ariel Dorfman
at Mosaic Theatre Until April 1
Set in an unnamed country that is, like the author's native Chile, emerging from a totalitarian dictatorship, the plot revolvs around Paulina, her husband Gerardo, and Dr. Miranda, a seemingly friendly stranger who provided Gerardo with a ride home after a car breakdown. The trouble begins when Paulina claims to recognize Miranda's voice, and accuses him of being the unseen doctor who had subjected her to horrific torture during her days as a prisoner of the country's former government.


Hello Dolly! By Jerry Herman and Michael Stewart
at The Maltz Jupiter Theatre Until April 1
The story of Mrs. Levi's efforts to marry Horace Vandergelder, the well-known half-millionaire, so that she can send his money circulating like rainwater, t not her late husband Ephraim Levi taught her. Along the way she also succeeds in matching the young and beautiful Widow Molloy with Vandergelder's head clerk, Cornelius Hackl; Cornelius's assistant Barnaby Tucker with Mrs. Molloy's loop assistant, Minnie Fay; and the struggling artist Ambrose Kemper with Mr. Vandergelder's weeping niece, Ermengarde.


The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
Music and Lyrics by William Finn / Book by Rachel Sheinkin
At Waterfront Playhouse Until April 7
H-I-L-A-R-I-O-U-S! This jubilant musical is about a group of quirky prepubescent overachievers who are pitted against each other in the spelling challenge of a lifetime. They are overseen by grown-ups who barely managed to escape childhood themselves. Ultimately, the nerdy and the wordy learn that winning isn’t everything and that losing doesn’t necessarily make you a loser. Infectious songs and a laugh-out-loud script (Tony winner for Best Book) make Spelling Bee a winner!


Joseph And The Amaxing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber / Lyrics by Tim Rice
at Actors Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre Until April 8
The international musical sensation created by the team that brought you Evita and Jesus Christ Superstar, is a fun, hip, colorful and tuneful adaptation of the well-known Biblical tale of Joseph. The melodious contemporary score features familiar songs like Close Every Door To Me, Any Dream Will Do, and Go Go Go Joseph.


Off Center of Nowhere by David Sirois
At The Alliance Theatre Lab Until April 8
Jackie, 17 year old Brooklyn high school student, has a secret to tell her parents.  But, in confessing her one secret, it unleashes a string of confessions that can destroy her whole family.  As the story unfolds, the characters are faced with moral conundrums that deal with abortion, racism and religion.


Property Line by Juan C. Sanchez
at New Theatre Until  April 8
Two long-time friends and neighbors, a “White American” couple and a Cuban housewife, are about it go to war over who has claim to 50 feet of green grass on their waterfront property.


Match by Stephen Belber
At The Red Barn Theatre Until  April 14
Married couple Mike and Lisa Davis arrive at the apartment of Tobi Powell in Inwood, on the northern tip of Manhattan, to interview him about his life as a dancer and choreographer.  But it is soon evident that their agenda is as multi-layered as Tobi’s life story.  What happens next will either ruin or inspire them—and definitely change their lives forever.


Moscow by Michael McKeever
Presented by Zoetic Stage
at the Adrienne Arsht Center Until April 15
Miami, 1962. The members of a once prominent South Florida family find their world challenged by the life-changing events of the era. The Kennedy assassination, the Cold War and the sudden influx of Cubans to Miami set the stage for an all out showdown as past, present, east and west all collide in this comic look at how we got to where we are today.


The All Night Strut! by Fran Charnas
At Broward Stage Door Theatre Until  April 29
Get ready for an evening filled with jazz, blues, bebop and standards that thrill the heart, tickle the funny bone and raise the rafters. Legendary songwriters as Hoagy Carmichael, Frank Loesser, Duke Ellington, Johnny Mercer, Cab Calloway and the Gershwins take you from the funky jive of Harlem to the sophisticated elegance of El Morocco and the romance of the Stage Door Canteen.

Posted in: Current Productions